Don’t worry, the iOS 6.1.1 beta won’t break your jailbreak—yet

But it's only a matter of time.

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If you're a serial jailbreaker who also has access to Apple's early iOS developer releases, you can rest easy—for now. A beta of iOS 6.1.1, released to developers on Wednesday, largely focuses on improvements to Maps in Japan and mysteriously comes with no expiration date. But the main point of concern for some users—whether the update would reset the recently released jailbreak for iOS 6.1—appears to be of no concern at all.

The recent untethered jailbreak tool, "evasi0n," was released on Monday this week, though a 1.1 update was issued last night with a number of fixes that were first posted to Cydia. The tool makes use of a previously undisclosed exploit available in all versions of iOS 6, making it possible for users to customize and install non-App-Store apps to their iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches.

But as we wrote earlier this week, new versions of iOS often patch these flaws once they're exploited—by jailbreaking tools or otherwise—so the jailbreaks don't often last long unless users don't upgrade.

That's why some iOS 6.x users are happy to report (via iDownloadBlog) that the 6.1.1 beta doesn't appear to change anything that affects the evasi0n jailbreak; it means they can install the latest beta without worrying about reverting their settings. Still, their jubilation is likely to be short-lived, as Apple often issues multiple betas before sending the final version out to the public. It's highly likely that Apple simply hasn't gotten to this particular security flaw yet and that it's on the punch list for the next release. Jailbreakers can have their cake and eat it too—until another beta comes out.

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Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

54 Reader Comments

I really think Apple needs to take a small step towards opening up the iOS app situation officially. Mac OS X currently has 3 options:1) Only MAS apps2) Only Signed apps which are not on the Gatekeeper blacklist (these may be non-MAS, but have to be signed against Apple servers, which anyone can do) - Default3) Any app (i.e. Wild West)

iOS currently only offers option 1. Now, I don't expect Apple to allow option 3 (I don't even think it's a good idea). However, if they allow option 2 as an official setting (while leaving option 1 as the default), it will do a lot to reduce the geek angst against iOS, if not eliminate it completely.

I think that will be sufficient to kill the desire to jailbreak. It will also help developers immensely, since even if their apps are rejected by the App Store, they can still find an audience (however,they miss out on the tremendous discoverability provided by the App Store, which while bad, should not hurt a good app fatally).

Additionally, I think it's only a matter of time where Apple is forced to do this by institutions like the EU anyways (unless iOS market share just plummets) so they would be smart to be ahead of the trend.

Hmm you think the EU will enforce this? I suppose locking down your platform could very well be considered as violating anti-trust rules. It would surely be in the spirit of consumer protection to breach down the walled garden.

I really think Apple needs to take a small step towards opening up the iOS app situation officially.

I agree, but I think they should have a button in advanced options that allows you to ssh in and get to root. It's fine to restrict access to root by default, and you want to protect people from themselves to ensure a high-quality user experience, but blocking technical people from full access to the device they purchased is complete BS.

I really think Apple needs to take a small step towards opening up the iOS app situation officially.

I agree, but I think they should have a button in advanced options that allows you to ssh in and get to root. It's fine to restrict access to root by default, and you want to protect people from themselves to ensure a high-quality user experience, but blocking technical people from full access to the device they purchased is complete BS.

I really don't understand this sentiment.

If someone really want wants the training wheels off experience with a device they can use the way they want to they can go buy a Google Nexus phone and get an awesome piece of hardware at an awesome price running an awesome mobile OS.

Apple is what Apple is, their unsatisfied with closed environment/walled garden fans need to stop trying to fight against the current and accept that what they really want is to move to Android.

Jail breaking isn't all that necessary anyway. I jailbroke once, and the instability it caused was not worth it.

You obviously had no clue what you were doing. Jailbreaking does not cause instability inherently.

Nope. It simply installs the Cydia store. What you choose to do with it afterwards - willy-nilly piling on tons of tweaks that may conflict with each other - that could cause issue. This happens much less since iOS 4 was jailbroken though. There's a lot more experience out there at this point.

Apple is what Apple is, their unsatisfied with closed environment/walled garden fans need to stop trying to fight against the current and accept that what they really want is to move to Android.

But I like my iphone, and I want it to be better. Why is that wrong?

(Hint: It isn't.)

No, you like Apple but want android's features. However, Apple has no intention or desire to fulfill your desires as they run completely contrary to Apple's desires.

Either you accept the Apple hoops because they'll always be there or you move to Android because it actually fulfills your needs and desires.

Thats why I will hack it and use it as I see fit. So meh.

Like I said, accept the hoops, and since you want to accept the hoops then I don't see the point in anyone who understands smart phones at all complaining about anything Apple does.

I compare the complaints of Apple users to those complaining about their girlfriend. They thought their girlfriend was super awesome and pretty when they got together, but she won't let them engage in certain sex acts with her without getting her drugged or drunk first, and all you want to do is practice those specific acts with her. She also doesn't care much about keeping you around, and makes little effort to change or improve herself to please you.

Down the street is a different girl that you once thought wasn't attractive but who is now even more attractive in a slightly different way because she's been working out and learning about makeup and style and who loves engaging in those specific sex acts and thinks you're hot, but you don't want her because at some point in the past you decided that she wasn't good enough so you'll just stick with your old girlfriend that takes you for granted and makes you do things you shouldn't need to do in order to do what you'd like to do with her.

This is pretty much the best metaphor I have ever heard. Proper punctuation, actual paragraphs and it was funny.. Who are you?!

jackstrop wrote:

I compare the complaints of Apple users to those complaining about their girlfriend. They thought their girlfriend was super awesome and pretty when they got together, but she won't let them engage in certain sex acts with her without getting her drugged or drunk first, and all you want to do is practice those specific acts with her. She also doesn't care much about keeping you around, and makes little effort to change or improve herself to please you.

Down the street is a different girl that you once thought wasn't attractive but who is now even more attractive in a slightly different way because she's been working out and learning about makeup and style and who loves engaging in those specific sex acts and thinks you're hot, but you don't want her because at some point in the past you decided that she wasn't good enough so you'll just stick with your old girlfriend that takes you for granted and makes you do things you shouldn't need to do in order to do what you'd like to do with her.

This is pretty much the best metaphor I have ever heard. Proper punctuation, actual paragraphs and it was funny.. Who are you?!

jackstrop wrote:

I compare the complaints of Apple users to those complaining about their girlfriend. They thought their girlfriend was super awesome and pretty when they got together, but she won't let them engage in certain sex acts with her without getting her drugged or drunk first, and all you want to do is practice those specific acts with her. She also doesn't care much about keeping you around, and makes little effort to change or improve herself to please you.

Down the street is a different girl that you once thought wasn't attractive but who is now even more attractive in a slightly different way because she's been working out and learning about makeup and style and who loves engaging in those specific sex acts and thinks you're hot, but you don't want her because at some point in the past you decided that she wasn't good enough so you'll just stick with your old girlfriend that takes you for granted and makes you do things you shouldn't need to do in order to do what you'd like to do with her.

All tho I will never own an Iphone I still think its a good phone. They should let people choose to install whatever apps they want on there phones. I still use Xp/Ubuntu on all my pcs and Laptops simply because I like to be able to fuck with all the settings to get the experience I want out of my machines

I agree that some posters might really want android and its features. However I can see why they wouldn't want tot move to android at this point. The iPhone is the uncompromised Apple experience on a mobile phone; because it is the only experience.

On android at this point there isnt one. You have Samsung in corner offering phones with great specs-the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note come with large 720p screens,LTE, micro-sd slots, removable batteries, pretty good cameras. But they are running touchwiz-not the best android experience in my opinion. There's Motorola in another corner with the Droid Razr Maxx with phenomenal battery life but has Motorola customization and sub-par display. Then there's the Nexus 4 which lacks a sd-card slot,LTE, and removable battery but it has stock android.

I just want a phone with stock android, ips 720p display, micro-sd slot, removable battery, LTE, large battery on par the the Razr Maxx's- I don't care about the thickness. I can't get this phone anywhere, it doesn't exist. And if it did, it would probably be between 4.8-5 inches.

I still want an android phone, but I don't knock iPhone users wanting to stay with iOS and jailbreak. That experience might be better for them then anything Android can offer.

Apple isn't going to ever allow an official jailbreak on their phones unless compelled by a court of law. And even then I wouldn't be surprised if they chose to withdraw from the market (if a small enough market) instead of comply.

1) It allows for piracy. I suspect this is the biggest reason, and it would cut directly into their 30% take from all sales via iTunes.

2) It vastly increases the likelihood of malware on the platform. Apple likes to think all of their products are immune to such, despite evidence to the contrary.

3) Instability / use of undocumented or outdated APIs. Ask Microsoft what happens when a large customer starts using an undocumented API and then demands it be supported in perpetuity (to be fair, a good bit of this was due to MS shooting itself in the foot, with things like the Office team using them, but its hardly the only case).

Even if Apple could somehow prevent the piracy issue I suspect the second issue would lead them to keep the wall well maintained.

Here's another analogy to try on: It's like buying a house right next to an airport, and then complaining because of the noise. The airport and it's noise were there before you moved in. If you don't like it, move somewhere else.

Also, no one mentioned Apple's financial motive. They make shitloads of money on their 30% app fee. Why would they give that up to allow non-App Store apps?

Finally, if they allowed non-App Store apps, and one of them ended up being a major piece of malware, the iPhone reputation would be permanently damaged.

Phones started out locked down, so you should be thankful for any level of openness you get, e.g. having an App Store at all. Personal computers started out wide open, so restrictions look more negative.

Play the jailbreak iPhone game if you want, just quit bitching about it.

...On android at this point there isnt one. You have Samsung in corner offering phones with great specs-the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note come with large 720p screens,LTE, micro-sd slots, removable batteries, pretty good cameras. But they are running touchwiz-not the best android experience in my opinion.

Don't forget that Android devices typically let you run an alternate launcher if you don't like TouchWiz or Sense or any other proprietary launcher - no root required. In my experience, Nova Launcher is an excellent substitute for everything I miss about stock android when it comes to my SGSIII (but there are many great alternatives out there). Combine that with Jelly Bean's built-in disable feature for bloatware apps, and I've had no need to root.

Also, no one mentioned Apple's financial motive. They make shitloads of money on their 30% app fee. Why would they give that up to allow non-App Store apps?

Because if they don't give it up, eventually they could lose customers. I've had an iphone since Gen 1, and while I'm still happy with iOS overall, Android has been looking more and more appealing as time goes on. Being able to run non-curated software on Android is a big positive in my opinion.

Unfortunately, I realize I'm probably the exception rather than the norm, and Apple would rather lose customers like me than open up as I'm sure it's better for their bottom line.

I really think Apple needs to take a small step towards opening up the iOS app situation officially. Mac OS X currently has 3 options:1) Only MAS apps2) Only Signed apps which are not on the Gatekeeper blacklist (these may be non-MAS, but have to be signed against Apple servers, which anyone can do) - Default3) Any app (i.e. Wild West)

iOS currently only offers option 1. Now, I don't expect Apple to allow option 3 (I don't even think it's a good idea). However, if they allow option 2 as an official setting (while leaving option 1 as the default), it will do a lot to reduce the geek angst against iOS, if not eliminate it completely.

I think that will be sufficient to kill the desire to jailbreak. It will also help developers immensely, since even if their apps are rejected by the App Store, they can still find an audience (however,they miss out on the tremendous discoverability provided by the App Store, which while bad, should not hurt a good app fatally).

Additionally, I think it's only a matter of time where Apple is forced to do this by institutions like the EU anyways (unless iOS market share just plummets) so they would be smart to be ahead of the trend.

While this would be a great solution for power users, it will never happen. Apple will never enable their iCustomers to get apps from outside the app store because they will lose their 30% cut. If anything, they're going the opposite direction with the Mac app store.

On top of that, it will increase support costs. Tightly controlling what is allowed on iOS devices is central to keeping them secure, consistent, stable, etc. However many good things those "in the know" could add, lots of apps from good, licensed developers would end up changing things in unpredictable or incompatible ways (with iOS or each other). And most people that buy Apple devices are actually happy with how Apple runs things (however much some of us [including me] don't like some parts of it).

Apple has no business reason to make it more difficult for themselves while losing money in the process. The few extra sales won't offset the increased costs & lost app profit.

No, what they mean is that while this beta won't break the jailbreak, a future one almost certainly will. At the most, the next major release (6.2 or 7.0) will do so. Since Apple locks down their hardware, jailbreaking is only possible through exploits. Usually buffer overflows, meaning crashes, although this particular jailbreak isn't. Anyway, Apple views it as fixing an exploit to protect their users.

I really think Apple needs to take a small step towards opening up the iOS app situation officially. Mac OS X currently has 3 options:1) Only MAS apps2) Only Signed apps which are not on the Gatekeeper blacklist (these may be non-MAS, but have to be signed against Apple servers, which anyone can do) - Default3) Any app (i.e. Wild West)

iOS currently only offers option 1. Now, I don't expect Apple to allow option 3 (I don't even think it's a good idea). However, if they allow option 2 as an official setting (while leaving option 1 as the default), it will do a lot to reduce the geek angst against iOS, if not eliminate it completely.

I think that will be sufficient to kill the desire to jailbreak. It will also help developers immensely, since even if their apps are rejected by the App Store, they can still find an audience (however,they miss out on the tremendous discoverability provided by the App Store, which while bad, should not hurt a good app fatally).

Additionally, I think it's only a matter of time where Apple is forced to do this by institutions like the EU anyways (unless iOS market share just plummets) so they would be smart to be ahead of the trend.

I couldn't disagree with you more. I like the walled garden, it hasn't stopped me from being able to choose between over 800,000+ apps (more than any other mobile device out there). And if I wanted to program a better app, I just have to cough up $99 developer fee and I can submit apps to my hearts content, and then download them onto my iDevice to my hearts content as long as the app didn't do anything unseemly and against Apple policy, I would be good to go. Plus I would still get the worlds safest mainstream mobile computing system. Why open up a chink in a solid system? It would only weaken the platform.

I personally hope that Apple prevents this iOS 6 jailbreak as soon as possible. However, by all means please keep trying to crack the system and posting code, techniques for doing so. It gives Apple the information to make the system even more secure, I like that.

For iOS users wondering why they would jailbreak their device, it's important to remember the history. Apple has been playing catch up to jailbreak-only features for years.

Custom Ringtones — The primary product of the first iOS jailbreak. Apple originally blocked all attempts to add custom ringtones through iTunes and iOS updates. They eventually relented, but only if the ringtone was officially purchased. They have since relaxed further.

Third-party Apps — Written in objective C, the first game was released in Aug 2007 and required a jailbroken device. While incredibly simple, this was a full year before Apple released iOS 2.0 and the App Store. Apple charged iPod Touch users $9.95 for this update.

Battery Percentage — Now enabled by default, the original iPhone had no way for you to put a number on the remaining battery life. Released Sept 2007, this small but valuable tweak was available to jailbreakers almost two years before Apple enabled it with the release of iOS 3.0 in June 2009.

Video Recording — The original iPhone and iPhone 3G featured a fixed focus 2.0 megapixel camera incapable of recording videos. The release of jailbreak-only iPhone Video Recorder in April 2008 unofficially remedied this. Apple devices could not officially record video until the release of the iPhone 3GS and iOS 3.0 in June 2009. Six months later, Apple allowed third-party video recording apps in the App Store for older devices.

Multitasking — The first iPhones could run one app at a time and killed the app from memory on every exit or switch. The release of Backgrounder in October 2008 was a milestone for the jailbreaking community and brought many new users the service. For nearly two years, this was the only way to multitask on iOS devices. Apple created their own multitasking system with the release of iOS 4.0 in June 2010. This system did not allow "true" independent multitasking, only limited features could be used simultaneously, sacrificing functionality for battery life. The feature was limited to the 3GS and higher. Backgrounder continued to work for older devices.

Orientation Lock — The first realization that their iPhone wasn't quite "magical" probably came to most users when they laid down in bed after a long day, opened Safari, and saw everything flipped sideways. Innovative users found they could rotate their device at just the right 45 degree angle, tilted backwards and almost read in bed. Almost. The only solution was to jailbreak (or sit up). This remained so for three years until the release of iOS 4.0 in 2010.

App Folders — Apple's Springboard was critically acclaimed and considered innovative at the time. With the release of the App Store, users quickly downloaded tens to hundreds of apps, requiring pages of scrolling to access. The release of BigBoss' Categories in October 2008 allowed jailbreakers to further sort their apps into custom folders. An idea copied by Apple almost two years later with the release of iOS 4.0 in June 2010. (Although Apple's implementation still arbitrarily limits the number of apps per folder.)

Lock Screen Information — The lock screen originally showed only the time and current caller. A simple glance offered no new information and you had to unlock your phone to check for new texts. Intelliscreen (May 2008) allowed up-to-date e-mail, text message, calendar and weather information to be displayed while the phone was locked. It also allowed users to swipe to open applications directly. Three years later, Apple added the exact same features to iOS 5.0 with the addition of Notification Center. (October 2011)

I could continue for a while. The feature set of Jailbroken devices is still quite ahead of Apple's official iOS releases. This is a list of copied functionality only.

Many users would balk at an iPhone without these features now. Indeed, many early jailbreakers found their devices nigh unusable with stock firmware after being spoiled with such features. So while it may be less relevant considering how much Apple has refined and improved their OS. The importance of jailbreaking in both liberating and progressing technology should not be understated.

What is it that makes you want to use an Apple device instead of an Android device? There must be something keeping you from jumping ship, since the main reason for jailbreaking seems to be to enable Android-like functionality.

The apps are generally more thoughtfully designed, it's a superior gaming platform, the android OS itself was terrible until fairly recently (4.0), android has vanishingly few tablet apps (I also have an iPad) and I've already invested in Apple's ecosystem.

What is it that makes you want to use an Apple device instead of an Android device? There must be something keeping you from jumping ship, since the main reason for jailbreaking seems to be to enable Android-like functionality.

I'm genuinely interested...

Firstly, I don't see it as enabling Android-like functionality. It may be functionality that Android also happens to have, but it may also be functionality that's unique to jailbroken iOS. Thing is, in virtually every iOS-related thread you've got someone piping up and saying 'You guys actually want Android'. No! I don't want Android. If I wanted Android, I would get an Android device.

Fact for me is, I like my iPhone. I like the form factor, I wouldn't want my phone to be any bigger. I like the look and feel of the OS. I haven't jailbroken since 5.0.1, and when I jailbroke my devices, it wasn't to change the look or the theme. Also, I haven't found an Android device which I like, mainly sizewise - most of them are the size of a chocolate slab. I never liked the feel of Android whenever I tried it, but I admit I haven't seen anything newer than ICS.

Another point to consider is that many iDevice owners may have app and content libraries to the tune of several 100 or even 1000 dollars. That would all get left behind with a system change.